Chapter 1 "I'm scared."
An Apparitional Experience
My father placed the letter that our headmaster from Apgujeoung Arts Academy sent us on the kitchen counter. He circled the date. In two days it will be official. Our Academy will be closed and some of us will have the chance to apply for and audition to be with the even more prestigious Seoul Arts Academy, a leader in both performing arts and practical arts. The buzz is, this will be a huge upgrade if you are chosen. They have state of the art facilities and excellent teachers, and only the best of the best are privileged to attend, and if accepted there wouldn't be anymore worries of university entrance exams because students from Seoul Arts can practically choose the art university they want to study at or perhaps even receive a contract before graduation. My parents wanted me to attend Seoul Arts for the longest time but I transferred from Tokyo during my first year and Seoul Arts only accepts students entering 7th grade and if you succeed in each of the performance exams you will continue on with your class of 50 towards graduating together. They consider this change a blessing.
Apgujeoung is a small academy with roughly 30 students specializing in music, dance, acting and art. My speciality is in art, painting, drawing, etc. Only three of us in my former Academy focus on this. The other students are into singing, dancing and acting. Apgujeoung isn't a full-fledged high school. Most of my classmates attend morning classes at their respective high schools and attend the Academy after taking their core classes. Recently the headmaster was asked to be a board member at Seoul Arts due to his great reputation in the community, and with that he asked if Seoul Arts can accept students from Apgujeong to enter if they pass the mid-semester evaluation exams. If accepted we can attend both our core classes and specialty classes in one main campus, and attend a school that will give us a better opportunity in our respective careers.
The two other artists who attended Apgujeoung with me failed the mid-sem evaluation. My best friends Yuri, Luhan, and Baekhyun passed so we along with 8 other students from our academy will begin our first day together. The local newspaper called us the "dirty dozen" entering the well-known academy. I don't know quite yet if I should be offended by it, Yuri certainly did. But she's always such a hot-head so it did not surprise me. Apparently there are bets going on as to how long we will last. There is something unsettling when being the new kid, I don't like being the new kid.
The building is fierce. It sits up in a hill and overlooks the beautiful city below. The grass is greener up here than anywhere I've seen. There are three main halls (academic buildings): one designated specifically as lecture halls, the other two containing the performing arts halls like the rehearsal rooms, music studios, dance studios and a smaller building for the art department. The only way to the art department is through the glassed hallway in the music hall past the dance studios. There are only 5 students in the art department from the 4th year class and including me, there's now 6. Near the front entrance of the school lies the teacher offices and towards the near end of the school by the hill'd auditorium is the resident building divided by a courtyard separating the male and female housing. At the highest point of the campus is the outdoor stadium where show cases and sometimes mid-semester evaluations take place. That, most of all, scares me the most. The other thing that scares me the most is the original student body, especially one by the name of Kai.
"He really is good looking."
"Stop staring Yuri, you'll draw attention to us."
"I don't see it. He's too dark."
"I'm dark, you idiot!"
"That's not what I meant. I meant his aura, he has a dark aura."
"Seriously, you two need to stop talking. Luhan, you OK?"
"He's supposed to be the best dancer in this school."
"So what? You can be the best dancer in this school too."
"Let's be realistic, Ev, there's no way I can compete with that."
All four of us stare at a man with long limbs and killer moves and a well-packaged package all tied up with, what Yuri calls, a delicious smirk. The four of us simultaneously sigh at the sight of almost perfection.
"Gods in this world do exist." I whisper to myself.
"Ya, that's what I was thinking." Yuri whispered back.
I shake off the infatuation by reminding myself that A) there's no way he'd notice my ordinary self amongst this extraordinary population of talented students. B) a guy who looks like that has to be claimed for. And C) a guy who looks like that is simply way out of my league so no need to even bother. Worship from afar, Ev, that's all you should do.
"Well, that was a productive morning. We come to our new school and the first thing the student body does is remind us how inept we 12 are by this lovely show case of talent. Why the hell am I even here?" I see that Baekhyun is just as annoyed by the change and disgruntled by our situation as I am. I pat him on the back.
"Just let them hear you sing, Baek, they've got nothing on you?" I encourage him. Luhan joins me.
"Seriously Baek, if anyone is to challenge their star it would be you, Apgujeong's star vocalist."
"Why me? You challenge him, you are the dancer."
"I'm scared." Luhan pouts.
"OK kiddies, lets get to class." Yuri gets us moving. Baek and Luhan go together, their schedules are nearly the same. Yuri heads to acting class and I to the art department. I keep my head down, trying hard not to make any eye contact. These students recognize me as being new. Most of them have been together since 7th grade and can easily pick out the new students, especially since this is the first time new students have been accepted that are not 7th graders.
I enter the music hall. Inside I make way past the dance studio and admire the glass hallway leading to a darker part of the building, the art studio. My teacher tells me to grab an easel in the storage closet located at the far end of building. I do as told and whistle a happy tune. When I am by myself, or when I am with my 3 best friends, I enjoy my boring life a little more.
I barely make out the silhouette of the easel at the right corner of the room but a very large bin of random sized sports balls are blocking my way. I turn on the light switch only to hear it snap back at me and become unresponsive keeping me in the dark for most of my search and rescue of that easel. I turn on my phone's flashlight and I notice the bin contains basketballs, volleyballs, tennis balls, ping pong balls, lacrosse balls, and every kind of sports balls and they're all blocking my way. I lay my phone on the floor near my feet. Just enough light gives me a view of the target that I place all my energy on. Clearly there's gotta be a mouse making its home in there considering how dusty and untouched they are. Maybe the school doesn't have time to play sports.
I bend down to push the bin out of my way when I hear what sounds like moans. I turn my head to where the noise is coming from, from the darkness. Oh my gosh. Ghosts. I search for my phone without taking my eyes off of the darkest part of the room. As soon as I reach my phone and pocket it, I hear a name being called out, "Kai." The ghost is calling for Kai.
"My name isn't Kai." I answer back. "It's Ev. I'll be leaving now. You can have the easel."
"What the hell?" I hear a deeper voice. Oh gosh, two ghosts.
"Don't stop." A female ghost.
"Don't use your tongue." I freeze. Oh geez. My curiosity gets the best of me and I move past the bin of balls towards my original destination, the easel, and now, my ghosts. I have an idea of what I will see, and it's something I've only experienced from reading my Japanese comics. This will be the first time seeing anything close to two people getting it on, don't judge me. I make way around what seems like a cabinet and squint my eyes, trying real hard to evolve into a cat and see in the dark. Knowing that won't happen, I lift up my phone next to my head, with the flashlight doing work, I see hands, tan-skinned hands making its way up a girl's skirt. Yikes. I make eye contact with the owner of the hands.
"Are you filming us?" The handsome ghost calmly asks me. "It would be nice if you'd stop." The ghost smiles. He's a gorgeous ghost. A very gorgeous, familiar looking ghost. I make my way for the door and try to swiftly exit but I fail doing so as I topple over the entire bin of balls. I step on like all 1000 of them and ride it back to where I tried running away from. I was nearly assassinated by sports balls and soon perhaps from the ghost and his short skirt girlfriend who is staring down at me.
"Ha!" I try to laugh off the awkwardness of finding them in their, um, embrace. I begin to apologize, wanting to bow but having a difficult time. I attempt several times. I stand and fall and try again and fall again until I finally am held by the ghost. I notice his dark-skinned hand is now holding me up by my bent elbow. That startles me knowing where that hand was and I trip over more balls and fall on the ground for the 10th embarrassing time. I hear him let out an annoyed sigh. And his girlfriend bends down to me and pushes my forehead with her finger to get my attention. Such a tiny girl with such a strong pointer finger.
"What are you doing here?" She's so pretty. They're all so pretty at this school. I face the ghost, his face stoic, indifferent. He buttons up his shirt and puts his uniform jacket back on. He grabs his tie and slings it over his neck but keeps it untied.
"She asked you a question."
"Um. Oh. I need to get that easel. But I, well, I'm here. So." Totally got distracted, lost in his dark aura and I became a stuttering idiot.
"You better not tell anyone you saw us here, understood!?" This girl is pissed at me. I nod still trying to snap out of the trance his looks put me on. "Let's go Kai." The ghost and the skirt leave me sitting on the floor surrounded with sports balls and complete embarrassment. I hear a squeak and I run like hell out of the closet.
Hello all! I have another trailer made for a story called An Apparitional Experience. Find it on its foreword and click on the youtube link. Thanks!
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